‘Revamped’ default wallpaper coming to Ubuntu 10.10

Users concerend about the appearance of the current default wallpaper in Ubuntu 10.10 beta may be pleased to hear, from Mark Shuttleworth no less, that a ‘revamped’ default wallpaper is being made in light of user feedback.

The original plan for Maverick’s desktop wallpaper was, in Mark’s words: –

To make the desktop have a unique style, but be personal to every different PC. In essence, the wallpaper for the Lucid->12.04 series is a symphony of light and light-related effects, and we want to make it so every day, each of those lights and effects moves just a little bit for each user, in a different direction. So, at release time, all the wallpapers look the same, but over the course of a month or so they all end up being different. For each release, we’d vary the “elements” a little, i.e. the number and relative strength of lights / flares / blurs.

Otto from the Canonical design team explains the ‘generative wallpaper’ idea further on the Canonical Design blog.

Bane or Boon

Mark’s comments were made to a thread on the Ayatana mailing listr titled ‘OMG! Ubuntu! – Bane or boon?’. The thread was a result of our own readers reactions to the initial default wallpaper for 10.10.